Thursday, May 12, 2016

A Day in the Life of a Retiree

Today I woke up, always a good thing. My 95 year old father looks in the obituaries to ensure he's not there and the gets up.

I was invited last night at the Cool Country Classic Car Club meeting to join a group that play Petanque Thursday mornings. Now I've never played this before but I'm hooked and what a great way to join in the local community. I met forgetful Frank who turned up late as he forgot it was on.
John brought his tape measure to adjudicate the results and I finished up on the winning team. I actually surprised myself that I was a worthy team member first time up. I'm hooked.
The game was finished with a coffee at a local cafe in Trentham - bit like cycling really but more about that later.
My new friends in the world of Petanque -good thing we have a Citroen and a Peugeot..

That's me all rugged up with the Trentham cold about to have another magnificently successful shot.
I did take a little look at the block which is looking good but with a sprouting of mushrooms or toadstools but because I can't tell the difference, they stay there.
If the kangaroos don't eat these, neither will we!!!!
On the way back home to Kyneton where we are renting, I saw in the corner of my eye a ruined stone building that made me turn the car around for closer inspection. You look at these buildings and wonder who lived here, what was their life like, how did they make their living and was it prosperous? This building had signs of expert masonry.
Check out the precision masonry on the very left. I imagine that this was a very nice home in its glory many years ago.
I finally arrived back home where Sue and I enjoyed lunch together, did some reading, discussed the future of the house build.

By mid-arvo, I decided to take a little 40 km ride in the country through the hills and vineyards out the back of Kyneton. It was filled with a little sadness and then some brightness. The sadness was due to a couple of kangaroo lying on the side of the road which were hit by fast moving vehicles. We see kanga but if you limit your speed, then you have the opportunity to avoid harming wildlife and not damaging your vehicle. A friend of mine rang to say he was going to be late for a ride yesterday as he discovered a dead kangaroo on the road. It had a very young joey in its pouch - he described it as a pinky, a very young joey still suckling in its dead mother.'s pouch. Very sad.....He took it to the Vets and hopefully it will survive.

However on my ride this afternoon I saw a magnificent wedge tail eagle floating on the wind. He was hovering above me for something like 10 minutes and all I could do was enjoy the wonderfulment of this great bird of prey with an amazing wingspan.

Not great photos but it took my breath away for the time he was there.
Hardly a movement of the wings - just floating on the wind
With Lamb Shanks for dinner and after a short black coffee and a glass of muscat, everyday is a new experience in the day of a retiree.
Dinner was absolutely  fantastic.
And in bed before 10ish for a 5.00 am get up to enjoy a ride with my new country bike riders.
Well, the do have jobs to go to.

2 comments:

  1. After 45278219871 years in the work force, my beloved is retiring this October. He is quite anxious about planning NOW, for the future. Perhaps selling his own medical practices and working as a locum one or two days a week for other practices or hospitals. Perhaps playing golf during the week.

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    Replies
    1. Hels, I can recommend retiring cold turkey - moving on, that's if you have other things in your life to fill the spaces.

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